


to learn to want (and to love)

by Naralanis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: But also, Divorce, F/F, Feelings Realization, Hermione is a little clueless, brief romione, but don't worry she figures it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:27:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26962123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naralanis/pseuds/Naralanis
Summary: Hermione wants for nothing, at least she thinks so. Ronald points out that wanting for nothing and wanting nothing are different things, and Hermione needs to figure herself out.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Narcissa Black Malfoy
Comments: 14
Kudos: 252





	to learn to want (and to love)

“What is it that you _want,_ exactly, Hermione?”

Hermione has to blink, bleary-eyed and not entirely alert. She’s been reading the same paragraph on _Transfiguration Today_ for the past ten minutes or so, and her reading glasses are practically dangling off her nose she’s so out of it, so Ron’s question takes her by surprise.

“I–uh, what?” she stutters, pushing the spectacles up and turning to face him. The lamp on his side of the bed is still on, and it illuminates the circles under his eyes, his slightly receding hairline, and, most importantly, his frown.   


“What do you _want_ out of this, Hermione? We’re not–” the words seem to elude him for a moment, so Ron opts for just vaguely gesticulating around the space between them, a gulf in their bed that has been steadily widening for the past decade or so. “We’re just going through the paces here. What are we doing??” He finally huffs out.

It takes Hermione by surprise, but it also doesn’t. She’s not an _idiot,_ she knew the signs were there; she had just chosen to ignore them because they didn’t necessarily bother her at all. She hadn’t thought they bothered Ron either, because he certainly never thought to bring them up – not when the sex stopped, or when their casual, affectionate touches seemed to fizzle out, not even when they went most of their days not saying anything other than ‘good morning’ and ‘good night’ to one another.   


Maybe she had been a little too willfully ignorant.   


She wants to answer him honestly, she does, but instinctively she knows that’s not exactly what he wants to hear. So Hermione shrugs her shoulders and blows out a weary sigh.   


“I’m not unhappy.”

Ronald visibly deflates, as she had predicted. He runs a hand over his hair – it’s mussed and sticking out at all angles – and he sighs so low and defeated Hermione can’t help but feel terrible about it. It isn’t his fault – it isn’t hers, either, which somehow makes this worse.   


His gaze meets hers and he looks so sad, but there’s a little smile tugging at his lips, like he’s trying to be happy for her sake.   


“But you’re not _happy.”  
_

Well.   


The divorce comes easier and quicker than anyone ever expected, and Hermione is simultaneously surprised and a little bit miffed that it doesn’t seem to catch any of their friends and family off-guard. Even Rose shrugged when she and her brother came by during Easter, saying something along the lines of “honestly, I saw it coming” and going back to her crème eggs.   


Hugo, on the other hand, had been inconsolable and angry, and he unfairly directed all of that emotion towards his father, who did nothing more than take it and tell Hermione they would deal with it. Hugo returns to Hogwarts still acting a little cold, but he gives Ronald a hug at the platform and deep down Hermione knows they’ll be OK.   


She lets Ron keep the house, because she never really felt any huge attachment to the place and knows he has some pride in the brick walls he erected himself, in the picket-fence he painstakingly paints over every summer or so. They still meet regularly for family dinners, they go out with their friends, and somehow it’s easy, like pressure had been lifted.

Ron helps her move into her new flat in the heart of Muggle London, grumbling all the way about the five floor walk-up where magic is not allowed. Rose enjoys the little reading nook Hermione made for her in her room, and Hugo thaws considerably at the brightly decorated bedroom full of Chudley Cannons posters.   


It’s better, for them. Different, but better.   


Hermione finds herself enjoying her work more. With no husband to come home to, and the kids away at Hogwarts for most of the year, she stays later, looking over complex runes and equations with more gusto than she’s experienced in years. She almost feels like a student again.   


Sometimes – when Ron goes on dates, or maybe when Ginny needles her enough after a round or three of Butterbeers at the Leaky Cauldron – Hermione wanders if there’s anything she should be _wanting._ She’s content, she’s fine. She’s not exactly _thriving,_ but she can’t figure out what on Earth she could possibly _want,_ so she pushes it aside and laughs along whenever Harry jokes about her settling for things too easily.   


It’s random and undeniably _odd,_ when it happens. Hermione’s focusing hard on a tricky little rune she came up with while mildly intoxicated with Ginny last week, and now her sober brain cannot make heads or tails of it. She’s so entranced she misses the three insistent knocks, her door swinging open and a harried woman rushing into her office.   


“Goodness’ sakes, _Miss Granger!_ Hello!”

She jumps when a hand is impatiently waved right in front of her face, and then she almost falls out of her chair when she finally sees Narcissa Malfoy staring up at her. 

Hermione has no time for a greeting, because suddenly Narcissa tosses a loud, buzzing object at her and practically hissing as she speaks. “ _Please_ make this bloody thing stop!”

Hermione’s reflexes barely kicked in time for her to catch…

“Is this an _iPhone??”_ She manages to squeak as the device buzzes and trills, the screen going absolutely nuts with colours.   


“I don’t care what it is, will you _please_ silence it without destroying it?”   


Eyebrows shooting up and jaw snapping closed, Hermione dutifully turns it off, and Narcissa’s breath of relief is loud and heavy.   


“Thank you,” she says, taking the thing back from Hermione between thumb and forefinger, as if touching it disgusted her. “Draco gave me this bloody thing, I have no idea…”

Somehow, Hermione hears the whole story about how Draco is “in” with Muggle technology and gave his mother a smartphone to help her “keep up with the times,” a statement that offended Narcissa to no end, and Hermione laughs as the blonde tells her. Somehow, she forgives Narcissa’s blustering intrusion and even teaches her how to turn the contraption off when walking into heavily warded areas such as the Ministry, because that can make some Muggle technology go haywire. Somehow, they end up talking for about an hour and Hermione forgets all about her runes, because wouldn’t you know it, Narcissa is a surprisingly easy person to talk to.   


And so, Hermione accepts her offer of lunch the next day as a thank-you for the whole iPhone incident. 

They meet in a swanky little bistro at Covent Garden and Hermione almost walks right past Narcissa, because the woman is wearing dark wash jeans and _a bloody t-shirt,_ with her hair up in a sleek ponytail and cat-eye sunglasses perched on her head. She does a double-take when Narcissa waves her to their table, and Hermione teaches her a bit more about the phone, genuinely impressed to learn that Narcissa has now got FaceTime down pat.   


Hermione doesn’t remember how exactly they end up making plans to meet again the following week, but it happens. And then, the next week, and the week after that, until Hermione just blocks out her lunch-time every Wednesday on her calendar. Ginny comments on the meetings with a laugh and a raised eyebrow, but Hermione brushes that off.   


They talk, a _lot._ About everything and nothing, all at once, and Hermione comes to find that Narcissa is not only smart, she’s _wicked_ smart. Like, knows complex arithmancy smart, like ‘I invent potions for fun’ smart, like ‘yes I know basically all the constellations, what of it?’ smart. Narcissa has a wealth of knowledge to share and seems happy to do so with Hermione, who soaks it all up like an eager sponge, leaving their lunches happy and sated from more than just the food.   


That isn’t to say Hermione doesn’t teach Narcissa a thing or two, either, iPhone incident aside. Hermione talks her ears off about Muggle authors (Narcissa is absolutely enamored by anything of Agatha Christie’s and the thought tickles Hermione to no end), and she also teaches her all about the Muggle painters of centuries past (Narcissa is inexplicably fond of Vermeer). Once, on a whim, Hermione presents two tickets to Les Misérables in the West End, and Narcissa just _sobs_ the entire time while Hermione just hands her tissue after tissue.   


Narcissa learns that Hermione puts her milk in before her tea and they have a _spirited_ argument about it, because the blonde is simplyaffronted, and it ends with Hermione not-so-begrudgingly vowing to switch it around. Hermione learns that Narcissa has _never_ been on a roller-coaster, so Hermione takes her to The Big One in Blackpool and learns the hard way that Narcissa gets motion sick very, _very_ easily.   


Before she knows it, this _thing_ with Narcissa has lasted over a year, and both Rose and Hugo ask her if she’s planning on inviting the woman over for Christmas, and that’s when Hermione’s thoughts grind to a halt, because she had not even _considered_ it, but now that the idea has been planted in her head, she wants, wants, wants.   


She wants to invite Narcissa over, so she does, and the Slytherin comes bearing gifts that make Hermione’s children _and_ her ex-husband squeal in delight (to be fair, the dragon-ivory chess set Ron received was lovely, if a bit excessive). And as they eat their roast and drink wine, Hermione gets lost in the vibrancy of Narcissa’s smile and the glimmer of her eyes in the candle-light of her dining room and suddenly she wants, wants, wants.

She wants their parting hug to last a little longer, she wants the kiss Narcissa bestowed upon her cheek to be a few centimeters to the left, she wants to hold on tighter and ask Narcissa to stay the night because she can’t bear to part with her just yet.   


And, like that, something suddenly just _clicks_ in her head; a feeling slots itself into place inside her chest and Hermione is a bit overwhelmed, because she’s never quite _wanted_ so much before and she doesn’t know how to deal with it.   


It’s Ron who helps her, in the end. She calls him up (on his brand new iPhone – Merlin those caught on fast) and he comes over immediately, finding her pacing her living room thrumming with manic energy, and once she relays her predicament he just laughs until he can hardly breathe.   


“‘Mione,” he says, shaking his head with fondness. “You _fancy_ her. Of course you want to snog her senseless; frankly we’ve all been waiting for you to do something about it.”

Oh.   


‘We all’ entails, apparently, literally everyone Hermione has ever met, including her landlady with whom she hardly talks but who somehow knows all about how often Narcissa comes by her place.   


So Hermione makes a plan, because she wants, wants, _wants_ to tell Narcissa about her recent discovery at New Year’s. She prepares accordingly, because she’s Hermione Granger and she won’t do anything by halves, so she writes out her confession in about sixteen inches of parchment and carries it nervously with her all through the party.   


And Narcissa is absolutely radiant, enough to make Hermione forget all about those thoughts carefully penned to parchment. Hermione _wants_ to dance closer and closer to her, she _wants_ to rest her hands on her waist and sway with her, she _wants_ to tilt her face just so and breathe the same air until their lips brush together.

Narcissa looks at her like she can read Hermione’s mind, and maybe she can; maybe she can see all the _want_ shimmering through Hermione’s eyes, because Hermione never had a great poker face to begin with. And, to her surprise (not to mention relief), Hermione sees that _want_ reflected on beautiful, beautiful azure, so she follows Narcissa beckoning finger until they’re pressed together and the dance-floor fades away to nothing.   


Hermione wants, wants, wants, and finally, finally, Hermione _gets it._  



End file.
